Forgive & Regret

by Kaitlyn Cross

  “Yeah,” she said, plating their eggs and bacon. “That time.” She stepped over a pile of her father’s tools on the floor and grabbed some orange juice from a white fridge. “I still think it was Bigfoot we heard in the woods.”

  “It was just a deer.”

  “A big deer.” She sat down at the table and Sawyer joined her, the smell of bacon mingling with a warm pitcher of maple syrup.

  “Probably a buck.”

  She thought for a moment as Sawyer bit into a strip of bacon. “What’s your place like?”

  His eyebrows rose into his forehead. “It’s pretty cool. I bought a two bedroom condo overlooking the river, everything brand new.”

  She pushed her eggs around on her plate with a fork. “When will you go back?”

  “Whenever I’m done with this place.”

  She took a bite, her eyes following his around the kitchen. After a moment, she jerked her chin behind him. “You should knock that wall out.”

  Sawyer looked over his shoulder, his chewing slowing to a stop. “You think?”

  “You could open the kitchen up to the living room and put an island in the middle.” She ate some greasy bacon that was calling her name. “Moms love islands and if you want to sell a house…appeal to the moms.”

  He turned back around, picked up the small glass pitcher, and drowned his pancakes in syrup. “That’s a damn good idea.”

  The coy look he tossed her brought a smile to her lips. This was nice. She stabbed some more eggs with her fork, surprised at how natural this tiny slice of what could have been felt between them. Even the silence was light and airy, open to suggestion. It was like they’d gone back to just before high school graduation. God, how differently things turned out from their dreams. Stella let out a wistful sigh as she examined the stubble on his chin. This should be their house. The one they were fixing up together.

  Sawyer took a long gulp of orange juice, watching her out the corner of his eye. “And the cabinets?”

  Her eyes rose to where the cabinets used to hang, outlined in whiter paint than the rest of the wall. “Dark cabinets with light countertops and stainless steel appliances. You can’t go wrong.”

  He nodded and stuffed some pancakes into his mouth. “I’d like to do the bathrooms but I think I’ll cut my losses and get out while I can.”

  She cocked her head to the side, a cold realization bleeding into her bones. “When you sell this place you won’t have a single connection to this town anymore.”

  He stopped chewing. “I’ll have you.”

  “You’ll never visit.”

  “I might.”

  “You won’t.”

  He chewed on it for a few seconds. “You’re right, I probably won’t.”

  Stella watched his grin slide back into his cheeks, the future flashing before her eyes. She would never see him again. Why would he come back to the scene of the crime?

  To get shot down again?

  To remember he was truly alone?

  No, he would dive head first into his career and keep moving forward while Stella kept going back. She was stuck in a vicious cycle, returning to the same cracked door leading to the same murky room, watering her nightmares and watching them grow. The thought of never seeing Sawyer again struck a chord of despair deep within, choking her appetite. Then it hit her. How could she have feelings for Roman, when she was still in love Sawyer?

  Stella dropped a half-eaten piece of bacon to her plate, the somber look on her face giving him pleasure, pleasure in the fact that she would miss him and he knew it. But that’s not what was draining her spirits. She was in love with two men and it was tearing her into pieces. How did she get here? “I’m just like her,” she thought out loud, staring vacantly at the glass pitcher shining in the sun.

  Sawyer stopped a strip of bacon in front of his mouth, eyebrows pulling together. “Who?”

  “My mom,” she murmured, wishing she hadn’t.

  He snorted. “That’s because your mom was a great person.”

  Stella’s nose turned up slightly, and there was no mistaking the disdain in her voice. “How can you say that?”

  He returned to his breakfast, avoiding her icy glare.

  Stella dropped her fork to the plate with a clatter. “That woman tore our families in two! Look around, Sawyer.”

  He sat up a little straighter in the thunderstruck silence that followed. “Why do you say that you’re like her?”

  Stella got up and took her plate to the broken sink dusted with plaster. “I don’t know.”

  He rose from his chair and came up behind her. “Your mom was one of the sweetest persons I knew,” he whispered against her neck, linking his arms around her waist and pulling her against him.

  “Don’t,” she whispered, his warmth tightening the knot of need in her gut.

  He kissed her softly on the neck, barely making contact, marking her with his lips. “Don’t what?”

  “Do that again.”

  “Do that again? Okay.” He kissed her neck again, sending flashes streaking behind her closed eyelids.

  “No, I meant don’t do that again,” she whispered.

  “Oh.”

  She raised her chin, his erection poking from his sweats and pressing against her backside.

  She turned to face him and let her fingers run through his chocolate-colored hair. “I forgive you.”

  Sawyer held her against him and it was like nothing ever changed. “Come back with me to the city and get the hell out of here for a while.”

  “No,” she said weakly, contradicting her inner voice.

  “Why not?”

  She wiggled from his embrace and crossed the room to stare out a sliding glass door overlooking the backyard they used to have squirt gun fights in. She could leave this town with Sawyer but never escape the past, not with him.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  She rotated her head a quarter turn.

  “Roman.”

  She turned back to the window, watching him in the glass. “No, it’s not.”

  He threw his arms out. “You’ve known this guy for less than a week, Stella! What the fuck!”

  She shifted her weight, suddenly feeling naked in just his flannel shirt. “I should probably get going.”

  Sawyer chuckled under his breath. “Of course you should.”

  Stella turned to face him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you are always running.”

  She rolled her eyes and buttoned the higher buttons on the shirt.

  He planted his hands on his hips. “As soon as you start admitting to yourself that you still want to be with me, you start running.”

  “Can you take me home now?”

  Sawyer came closer and she backpedalled, fearful of the destructive look in his eyes. He pressed her up against the wall, the hairs bristling on her neck. “Let me love you,” he whispered.

  “No,” she replied, turning away from him.

  He kissed her neck again, making her head twist the other way.

  Applying two fingers under her chin, he turned her eyes to his and set his jaw. “Yes,” he said, pressing his lips to hers. Stella tried to break free but he kissed her hard, melting her resistance with the taste of maple on his lips. Sawyer lifted her off her feet and, in a moment of weakness, she wrapped her bare legs around him and tangled her fingers in his hair. He pinned her to the wall, flicking his tongue against hers as they fused into one. Stella let her guard down and got lost in his kiss, charged feelings from the past blazing through her as she fell in love with him all over again. He grinded against her, biting on her bottom lip. If it weren’t for his loose sweats and the skimpy panties hiding beneath the flannel shirt he loaned her, he would already be deep inside. She could feel it trying to push in, stealing her breath with each subtle thrust of his hips. His kisses clouded her better judgment and she was powerless to stop them.

  “I’m not going to let you go without a fight.” Sawyer didn
’t wait for a response and pressed his mouth against hers, tongue-tying her again.

  Stella squirmed beneath the hard-on in his sweatpants, wanting to reach inside his elastic waistband and wrap her fingers around his throbbing cock. “Stop,” she breathed against him, inhaling sharply when his fingers found her wet center. “Sawyer,” she panted, grabbing his wrist.

  In a supple move, he pulled her lace underwear to the side and slid two fingers inside of her. She pulled on his hair and forced herself to breathe, his fingers coaxing a moan from her lips. His eyes dared her to stop him, dared her to contest. Something flashed in there, something dark. She shoved him with both hands. “Stop,” she yelled with her hair hanging in her face.

  Sawyer turned and punched a hole through the wall. “We were supposed to be together, goddammit!”

  She stared back at him in horror, fighting the flush of heat between her legs. He was right but that didn’t matter now. She pulled the flannel shirt over her disheveled underwear and tucked her hair behind her ears, composing herself in the sunlight streaming across the kitchen floor. “Can you take me home now?”

  He stared at her with bewilderment written on his red face, chest heaving and erection sinking in his pants. A slow exhale passed his lips and Stella left the room to change into her clothes. Her inner voice told her to move quicker. Irritation set in. She gave in to something she knew was bad for her, loving it almost as much as she regretted it now. She was a user, addicted to a fantasy that was slowly killing her inside. And that’s exactly what it was: A fantasy. Stella blew out a frustrated breath and checked her phone to see two missed texts from Roman. Her heart broke. He was worried about her. She hurt him last night by going home with Sawyer. Stella squeezed her eyes shut. What had she done? Her eyes opened and landed on Sawyer’s bed. He played her just right. She hopped into her jeans, firm resolution stoking the fire in her eyes. There was only one way to quit Sawyer cold turkey and that was to find a different drug, and she knew just where to find it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  By the time Sawyer dropped Stella off at her father’s house, clouds had rolled in and blotted out the sun, painting the town with a dreary shade of gray. Swollen with relief to be out of his truck, she watched Sawyer drive away, a piece of her wondering if she would ever see him again. She hoped not and turned up the driveway, noticing a note pinned beneath her car’s wiper. Glancing over her shoulder, she waited until Sawyer was out of sight before going back to retrieve it. Her brow creased when she unfolded the colorful sheet to see Tabitha easing backward as two ragged hobos inched closer. “What the hell?” she muttered, raindrops beginning to tap the roof of her car. Stella flipped over the glossy page, clearly torn from Sawyer’s graphic novel, and her heart sputtered for traction when she saw the handwritten words in sloppy red letters.

  Are your new pets housetrained?

  She stared at the words scribbled over a panel with glowing green eyes watching Tabitha from the darkened woods. Stella looked up. The feeling that someone was watching her right now sent shivers down her spine. Her eyes canvassed the quiet neighborhood, mind deducing. Sawyer couldn’t have left the note because he was with her the whole time, which meant he probably didn’t send the Tulipgram and the pink carnations either. So who did? Her eyes scanned the street without moving her head, raindrops falling harder. Roman surfaced in her mind and she quickly dismissed him as a suspect as well. He wouldn’t go to the trouble of leasing a lake house to blow it with some creepy notes and flowers. Then she saw Todd from the casino, his angry face as bright as the casino lights themselves. A shudder rippled through her. She took his money and he took her license plates in return. Somehow, maybe through a friend in law enforcement, he knew where she lived. Stella shivered with a cold breeze sweeping past. Turning, she power walked her thigh-high boots up the driveway, long heels clicking loudly against the darkening cement. This was just what she needed right now.

  Inside the house, she shut the door and locked it. She stood and listened, praying that if Hank was home, Vicky wasn’t with him. His Escalade could be in the garage but it was dead quiet inside the house. She read the note again, not recognizing the messy handwriting, and came to a dead end. Folding it back up, she shook off a case of the creeps, suddenly feeling very alone.

  “Hello?” she yelled out.

  “In here,” Hank called back.

  Stella released a pent-up breath and found her father eating a chicken salad sandwich while reading something on his tablet at the kitchen island.

  Alone.

  He looked up with puffy bags under his eyes, dressed in a blue short-sleeved button down that went nice with his charcoal khakis. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

  Stella sank into a bar chair. “Don’t even say it, I feel bad enough already.”

  Chewing, he examined her over a mug of steaming coffee. “From the brown bottle flu or from whatever the hell that was last night?”

  “Both,” she said, burying her face in her hands.

  “Quite the show,” he said, taking a careful sip. “Guess I’ll avoid the square for a while but at least Vicky had fun. She wants to party with you.”

  Stella looked up. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I really am.”

  “So…” Hank paused to collect the question she knew was coming next. “You and Sawyer, huh?”

  A lone tear stained her cheek. “We were going to tell everyone that summer, just before leaving for college.”

  Hank set the mug down, eyes pinned to his daughter.

  Stella stared at the new fridge through distant eyes. “The night before the accident, I couldn’t take it anymore and told mom.” A sardonic chuckle rolled from her lips. “She started crying and I thought she was happy for me but quickly figured out that wasn’t the case. She got so mad about it, and I couldn’t understand why.”

  Hank cleared his throat and swiveled in his seat. “She didn’t come clean with you about Steven that night?”

  Stella shook her head. “She said that if I continued to see Sawyer it would hurt Jase and tear our families apart.”

  He snorted, amused by his ex-wife’s selfish justification. A heavy breath lowered his shoulders. “I’m so sorry, honey,” he said softly. “I had no idea.”

  “No one did.”

  He rubbed his chin. “And you and Sawyer…”

  She turned to face him. “I stopped it after the accident because when I look at him all I see is his dad and that night, over and over again in my mind.” She took a deep breath that made a wheezing sound when it entered her lungs. Agony discolored her eyes and Stella shriveled beneath her heavy burden, breaking into tears.

  Hank got to his feet and swept her up in his arms, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head.

  Sobbing uncontrollably, Stella soaked the shoulder muffling her words. “I loved him so much and all of the sudden…”

  “I know, sweetie, I know.” He hugged his daughter tight, reassuring her with his warm embrace.

  Stella managed to pull herself together just enough to look up and find his hurt gaze. Her voice turned to a cold whisper. “How do we get it back, Dad? All of it?”

  Hank pressed his lips together and rubbed her arms, the answer in his eyes. “You have to forgive her, sweetie. You can’t heal and move on until you do.”

  “I can’t,” she said, sticking her face in his chest. He held her against him and stroked her hair as she broke down in his arms. How could she forgive her mother? Sarah was the one who tore their families apart, not Stella. She pounded a fist against her father’s chest and he hugged her tighter, whispering lies in her ear. Nothing would be okay. Nothing was ever going to be okay, and she would never forgive her mother for taking that away.

  “You have to let it go.” Hank pulled back for a better look. “Listen to me, don’t let the past spoil the present. I can tell you from personal experience, you will never be able to dig a hole deep enough to bury the past.”

  Hank sat back down and exhaled a weary
breath. “For a long time, I hated your mother too. Hell, I hated her before the accident when she told me about Steven but I have forgiven her.” He stared at his half eaten sandwich through faraway eyes. “After the accident, I went over a thousand things in my head I could’ve done differently but none of it mattered because she was gone before that night.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “She wanted a divorce and her mind was made up. I felt like such a failure, as both a husband and a father, and then to see her die a few short weeks later…” He looked up and found her eyes. “I forgave her before the anger could eat me alive and, believe me, it was chewing me up inside. It was the only way I could move on.”

  They studied each other for a few seconds, Stella thanking God it hadn’t been Hank in the car with Sarah that night. Thanking God it had been Sawyer’s dad instead.

  Hank turned his coffee mug on the granite for a bit. “So who’s this Roman guy?”

  Stella rolled her eyes. “He’s a friend.”

  He arched a bushy eyebrow. “Did he really lease a house here just to be closer to you?”

  “No, he lives in the city and travels the area for his job and wanted a spot to relax.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “Plastic surgeon, huh?” he said, an impressed downward bend to his lips.

  She nodded.

  Hank slapped the table, making her jump. “He’s the one you want.”

  Stella laughed and it felt so good she never wanted to stop.

  “Does he make you happy?”

  She stared at him, a faint smile shaping her lips. “He does.”

  “Good.” He checked his watch and hopped up. “Shoot, I’m supposed to pick Vicky up at the library for a matinee. We’re going to see an old Hitchcock film at the Varsity.”

  They hugged and five minutes later, Stella found herself alone in the house, vulnerable to attack from her racing thoughts. Brushing her fingers across the cool granite, her mind drifted to the note pinned to her car. Who would do that? Who would know about Sawyer and his recent publication like that? Her cell phone rang inside her purse and she pulled it out. Looking at the screen, her heart rate accelerated.